Sony TV denies phone mix-up victim sought damages

New Delhi, May 9 (IANS) Sony Entertainment TV, which has been slapped with a legal notice by a Mumbai-based woman who was inundated with calls by actor Aman Varma’s fans, has refuted reports that she has demanded Rs.10 million as compensation. Resham Lalwani, whose cellphone number was divulged as the contact number of Aman Varma’s character in the serial “Sujata”, was flooded with calls after the episode was aired April 29.

The calls apparently increased after the repeat telecast of the show the following day.

According to media reports, Lalwani has sent a legal notice to the channel asking them to publicly declare that the number does not belong to the actor or provide compensation of Rs.10 million.

However, Sony Entertainment TV’s vice president (developing and programming) Sanjay Upadhyay has denied the reports.

“Yes, we have received a legal notice regarding the matter. But there is no such amount mentioned in it,” Upadhyay told IANS by phone from Mumbai.

Although the channel has not yet responded to the notice, it plans to do it soon.

Upadhyay describes it as a co-incident. “It is an unfortunate and an unintended incident. Usually, we give out a fictitious number on shows and it is for the first time that such a problem has ever occurred,” he said.

Ravi Chopra, the producer of the serial, told IANS: “We always use a random number. We could have called up and checked whether it belongs to any person or not, but we just didn’t expect that something so extreme could happen.”

“Sujata”, the show on which Lalwani’s number was “unintentionally” announced, is a woman-centric melodrama in which Aman plays the male protagonist.